


accession

by en passant (corinthian)



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Gen, if i kill them enough times maybe i'll get it out of my system
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-30
Updated: 2016-01-30
Packaged: 2018-05-17 06:50:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5858620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian/pseuds/en%20passant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karna doesn't have many regrets.</p><hr/><p>I left the only home I knew<br/>I stayed alive and I found you<br/>Now I take you where the water's deep<br/>And make the air you breathe so sweet</p><p>But is it not enough to be complete? Please?<br/>Let me give you everything you need, please?<br/><i>Cold Cold Water</i> -- Mirah</p>
            </blockquote>





	accession

**Author's Note:**

> small canon, big indulgences continues.

Arjuna resembles home more than he should. There shouldn't be the familiar yearning in Karna's chest when he sees his brother — they never grew up together, after all — but something about having him near lightens his steps.

Karna believes, fully, that they were meant to face each other, either in combat or otherwise. (Arjuna, might, see him as an obstacle — an enemy, a reminder of something he didn't want to see again.)

He doesn't goad him on purpose, but the words come too easily: Again, is all he has to say. Or, are you happier this time? Or, he wanted to say _I forgive you_ but instead he ends up asking: Are you looking to be exonerated?

Arjuna sneers at him for that. Proudly, his response: I would make the same choice again. I will make the same choice again.

Karna can only smile in return — Arjuna is unbreakable, unyielding, someone who approaches perfection but always finds it just out of his grasp, the kind of driven spirit that Karna envies, a little. Ah, I know. He responds, because he intends to meet Arjuna as strongly as Arjuna meets him.

It would be unbecoming to not.

* * *

Their Master is inexperienced. She trembles before battle, is unsure of herself — and even when she pushes forward, it would be far too easy to defeat her, if she did not have Servants.

Karna notices — Arjuna attends to their Master as he would a king. He is gracious and kind. When she makes wishes for other Servants and none answer her calls, he comforts her. Arjuna is the hero he should be.

On the distant shore — the land after London — where the battlefield lays a wasteland of bodies, bayonets and broken bones, blood on the grass; it's Arjuna who steps up behind their Master and murmurs something in her ear that gives her the strength to move forward.

Karna wonders what was said, but he'll never know because Arjuna doesn't share those words with him.

* * *

(Karna doesn't regret many things.)

* * *

Arjuna isn't easily surprised, but when Karna falls into step with him after a battle he whirls — too sharp and unguarded and Karna thinks: this is the face a little brother wears. But it's also the anger and Arjuna's fist finds Karna's cheek, his other hand grasps at air — either another strike or to grab Karna's shoulder, but he restrains himself.

The bruise blooms warm and then cold. Karna barely feels it, even if his skin will remember it for another day.

"Next time you'll lose your head." Arjuna warns.

"You're nervous." Karna points out.

"My enemy lives in my home." Arjuna is spiteful. "I would sooner kill him than be killed by him."

Karna would change that, if he could, but he knows Arjuna won't be shifted from the idea. That's the piece that defines them, after all. He doesn't offer reassurance, because it isn't his way. He doesn't think Arjuna wishes to be reassured either. 

Even Karna has some shortcomings.

* * *

Overheard, he didn't eavesdrop but Arjuna's voice always carried to his ears — and he would always be able to hear his Master no matter where she went.

"In the end, my wish is purely selfish." He says.

"That doesn't make it any less important!" She says.

"Please, if you would, remove it from your memory." He asks.

"I won't. It's one of your serious feelings, I can tell."

Maybe, she is smiling. Maybe, Arjuna is flustered.

"I wasn't joking," Arjuna replies.

"So, I won't forget it! I hope you get your wish."

Karna doesn't know what it is, but he also hopes that Arjuna can be happy, this time around.

* * *

He loses track of Arjuna on the battlefield. It's easy to do, because Arjuna is an archer so he is always just at the fringe of Karna's sight. Their Master, though, Karna keeps in view and it's her face that tells him something has gone terribly wrong. She raises her hand, to use a seal, but they're already all gone.

She says his name.

Karna turns, but doesn't see Arjuna behind him. It has, he realizes, been some time since one of the blue feathered arrows has zipped past him. (Arjuna's quivers never empty, his arrows always strike true, there is only one other archer that can rival him...)

"I'll find him," he promises to his Master and to himself.

Usually, the white of Arjuna's clothes would stand out, but even still it takes Karna some time to find his brother. Arjuna, brought to his knees in the dirt — red across half his face, all down his side. He's half-curled over, both arms around his middle. Pale pink amidst the red and white — Karna knows.

"Arjuna," he reaches out — his hand on Arjuna's shoulder to anchor him here. Servants should be more durable than this, he thinks as well. Arjuna recoils, slaps his hand away but in doing so also reveals the terrible gash that splits him from sternum to waist.

It shouldn't be so easy to see his bones, lungs, viscera.

"Don't." Arjuna hisses. His breath and his words tight and quiet. "Don't," he says again, curls down on himself more.

Karna accepts Arjuna's command, but doesn't follow it. He kneels down behind his brother and wraps his arms around him, presses his hands over Arjuna's, as if that would help. If only he had the words to make it right.

"This must be a joke. How embarrassing," Arjuna continues to speak, hurriedly now, though. "For you to be the last one here. For me to... again, the doors are closing to me."

"Arjuna," Karna searches for the words, still.

"Don't touch me. I never asked for your pity or forgiveness." Arjuna wants to make it clear, even as chills shudder through him. "If this ends... I'll ... It's regretful for it to end like this."

"... then take up your bow," Karna challenges him, softly, barely whispering.

"I have." Arjuna says, even though his hands haven't moved, he doesn't have the strength. "I'll kill you, if you don't strike me down first."

Karna, doesn't have many regrets.

He accepts Arjuna's burden, and his hands that are already covered in blood find his brother's neck and with the strength granted to him by his summoning, as a Servant, it's far too easy to snap Arjuna's neck.

 

 

He sits with Arjuna's body until it disappears. Something sits heavy on his chest, making his breath shallow. It should be easy to accept — they were both long dead to begin with. Instead, it feels as though he can't return home again.

Again, they are unresolved.


End file.
